Thursday 1 November 2012

Ethan, God of Thunder and Sam, God of Mischief!

Ta-da! I'm really please with how these turned out. I think I probably could have done better if I'd not left it so late to do, I was working on them right up until the morning of Halloween.


On to the making! Ethan's costume was quite a bit simpler than Sam's, because I already had the suit from Asda, leaving only the helmet and mjolnir (the hammer to you and me), which were very easy. The helmet started the same as Sam's, paper mache and a balloon.
 Then I used this photo (found via good old google, I think it's from the movie release posters) for reference to cut out the wings from craft foam - amazing stuff - and used my glue gun to add detail like so:
 Not too shabby! A tad wobbly, but alright for a kids costume. Then I glued wire to the back to help shape them. I could have used heat, if you heat fab foam a little you can re-form it and it'll stay in the new shape. I forgot that until after the hot glue though. You can see the wire in the next picture.
 
 You can also see Mjolinr, which was really simple. I had the cardboard tube and a small cardboard box. Hole in the box, stick in the tube. Bang, done. I also put a layer of foam on the box because it was a little bashed. Then I sprayed, which was fun til I got some on the patio slabs and could smell it all day long.

A little more glue, and the helmet was done, really really easy. The handle of the hammer I just added some dark brown foam strips for the straps and handle. Ethan later asked me to take it off as he didn't like the feel, but he kept it on for photos!
I also sewed a new cape for him as the one that came with the costume was pretty rubbish and thin, and had been hemmed so the shiny side was down. Simple enough job, buy a rectangle of shiny red fabric, hem the edges, sew on a bit of velcro at the top to attach. The suit already had velcro for the original cape so I didn't even have to bother with that.

On to Sam. His costume wasn't so much harder, but it had more details. This post shows how far I'd got with the helmet and jacket.

 Here's the jacket after a coat of gold spray paint (which I now hate) for the armour. I didn't end up putting more armour on the arms for 2 reasons - first, I ran out of time, and second, Sam had enough issues with the front piece! I used fabric glue from B&Q to glue it on, but I wasn't happy it was held on enough so added some superglue, and later used the glue gun a bit to patch it up. I had some leftover green satin fabric from making bow ties, so I cut that to size, hemmed it, put velcro on it and the jacket, and voila, another cape.

Helmet. It actually turned out easier than I thought, once I decided to make it this way. I used long thin triangles of foam for the horns to make them slightly pyramid-y as that's what they look like in most of the pictures I found, and glue gunned them in place. I looked at lots of other homemade ones, but didn't use their horn instructions as they just didn't look right. They are the place I discovered craft foam though which is absolutely brilliant.
 Then came the painting. Oh my goodness, how much do I hate the gold spray paint I used. I'm sure it was just a faulty can or other brands are better but grrrrr. The first can I used did the pieces on the jacket fine, and part of the helmet before it ran out (it was a small can). So I went and picked up another one. I don't know what I did wrong but somehow that one separated! I got some gold bits but a lot of silver bits. Either way, it looked a mess. The shop I'd gone to for the paint was in Leeds and this was the day before Halloween and I didn't have time (or the inclination!) to spend another £5 plus petrol going to get more. I looked through some shops here, no joy for spray, but in B&Q (again, awesome) I found some gold emulsion. Now, I don't know who the heck would paint their walls metallic gold, but I grabbed a tester pot and went with it. It was ok. It was drippy and took an absolute AGE to dry, but it covered the patchy awfulness.
 Ta-da again! Here also is Sam's staff of Loki, and of this I am quite proud. I tried to find pictures online but it's a pain, as he has 2 or 3 different ones in the film. I eventually found This brilliant blog post where a guy has finished his own (MUCH more professional!) staff. It gave me a great point of reference for shapes and general ideas.

I started off with a long cardboard tube again, it had previously been a sword for a knight costume for Ethan. Sam had a blue glitter and water filled bouncy ball which I thought would do well for the stone. I wanted to stick a torch inside the tube to light it up, but couldn't find one thin enough. Then I noticed on that blog that there was a sort of metal junction-y bit under the stone, and I had a torch small and thin enough for that. So...
There it is! the blade-like parts are all sprayed foam, the 2 sections under the ball are the torch. All glue gunned into place. It wasn't the neatest glue job, but again, time. I made a small cut away it the top of the tube so I could turn the torch on and off as the switch was annoyingly on the bottom end, then covered it with a flap of foam.
All in all, I'm pretty pleased with the results. I thought I might have bitten off more than I could chew with this, but it was all surprisingly simple once I'd got all the plans in my head. Sam didn't want to wear his helmet much, and it rained on us while 'trickle treating' as Ethan calls it, but we had a pretty good time anyway, and they got plenty of treats!

Update: This blog has now moved to www.undomesticaited.wordpress.com - Hope to see you over there!

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